Business Commons^™

User-Friendly Financial Statements: A Proposed Model, Kenneth Yale Rosenzweig, Andrew A. Fioriti

Accounting Faculty Publications

In contrast to early bookkeeping systems whose only role was to assist the resident owners, financial reporting today serves to protect various nonresident parties with interests in the enterprise, such as absentee shareholders. It provides them with information useful for monitoring the operations of the enterprise and for making decisions concerning it.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) formalized this concept of usefulness when it stated:

• Financial reporting should provide information that is useful to present and potential investors and creditors and other users in making rational investment, credit, and similar decisions. The information should be comprehensible to those who …

Intra-Industry Joint Liability: Implications For Marketing, Karl Boedecker, Fred W. Morgan

Economics, Law, and International Business

Market share liability is the most recent product liability development in the area of intra-industry joint liability, in which all members of an industry are sued. The various intra-industry approaches by which a consumer can recover for injuries are reviewed in this article, and their implications for marketing are examined.

The Psychology And Ethics Of Humane Equine Treatment, Sharon E. Cregier

Equines Collection

The effect on animals of man-induced stressors, such as the disruption of herd bonds, stabling, medication procedures and the like, has been the subject of increasing investigation. Obvious and shocking abuses against animals, bullfighting, certain training practices in the racehorse industry, and rodeo events such as wild horse races, steerbusting or calf-roping, are readily recognized and have, in some instances been stopped. (Steerbusting refers to roping, from horseback, of running cattle in such a manner as to flip the animal backward or jerk it down, knocking the wind out of the animal and occasionally breaking ribs, vertebrae, and neck.)

However, …

Developments In Law - Toxic Waste Litigation, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Horsebreakers, Tamers, And Trainers: An Historical, Psychological, And Social Review, Sharon E. Cregier

Equines Collection

To my knowledge, there has been no organized synthesis describing the historical development of horse handling, management, lore, and training. This discussion offers, in capsule form, some of the historical, psychological, and social considerations which might be taken into account when evaluating horse-handling skills.

First, I would like to describe the natures of the emotional and psychological bonds between man and horse. I will also look at the consequences of various types of bonding on horsemanship or management. We can increase our understanding of the role of the horse in our history and lives by thus seeing how the animal …

The Case Against Intensive Farming Of Food Animals, Linda D. Mickley, Michael W. Fox

Agribusiness Collection

The well-being of American agriculture is indeed a complex subject, fraught with interrelationships, predictions, recriminations, and at times, high emotionalism. In this paper, we will be concentrating on several aspects of the entire picture that we feel are fundamental to the issue of animal welfare in modern agriculture. First, we will take a brief look at two farm animal species maintained in very restrictive systems, that is, battery-caged laying hens and tethered and/or crated brood sows.

Next, the human costs in terms of occupational diseases and consumer health hazards will be considered. Finally, some humane alternatives to the factory systems …

Duties To Offset Competitive Advantages, Richard B. Dagen, Michael S. Knoll

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For Intensive Farming Of Food Animals, Stanley E. Curtis

Agribusiness Collection

Our world is still a hungry place. At the same time, the number of people worldwide who grow food for themselves continues to dwindle. Most U.S. citizens have never set foot on a farm or harvested one mouthful-let alone a lifetime's worth-of daily bread. Yet our farmlands and climates and our agricultural and food industries are this nation's ultimate resources. By increasing productivity, our farmers and the scientific and business endeavors that support our nation's food production, processing, and distribution have proved to be able and reliable husbands of these precious resources. But make no mistake: The challenge to increase …

Companies Are Not Using Fas 33 Data, Kenneth Yale Rosenzweig

Accounting Faculty Publications

How is price-adjusted information required by FAS 33, “Financial Reporting and Changing Prices,” being used for management decision-making purposes? I mailed a questionnaire survey to the controllers of all companies in the FASB's Statement 33 bank to find out the answers and to examine the company characteristics associated with such use. The questionnaire was designed to find out the extent of use and reporting of FAS 33 information for internal company purposes such as management decision making and the factors that might be associated with that use and reporting.

The controllers were asked about the extent of internal use and …

The Definition, Current Knowledge And Implementation Of Welfare For Farm Animals--A Personal View, Ron Kilgour

Agribusiness Collection

Being humane to farm animals (welfare) must include (1) having a sound knowledge of their normal and anomalous behavior responses in a farm context and heeding this in a practical way and (2) adopting handling procedures which elicit minimal distress in the species concerned. Building up an ethogram of predictable responses and recording the patterns of behavior during key events, mating, birth, and care of the young are essential. There are still gaps in the recorded ethograms offarm animals. Objective measurements of distress, including an index of its seriousness, are also a priority.

The results from animal preference tests can …

The Economics And Jurisprudence Of Convertible Bonds, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

Professor Bratton examines judicial regulation of issuer-bondholder conflicts of interest within three different, but closely related doctrinal frameworks: neoclassical contract interpretation; contract avoidance; and corporate law fiduciary restraint. After discussing the elements of convertible bond valuation and their interaction with issuer actions giving rise to conflicts of interest, he evaluates the case for judicial intervention to protect bondholder interests. He concludes that ·bondholder protective intervention is fair and tolerably efficient, provided it is kept within the bounds of contract interpretation. But he finds that more aggressive judicial intervention under the frameworks of contract avoidance and fiduciary restraint carries an unnecessary …

The Interpretation Of Contracts Governing Corporate Debt Relationships, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judge Friendly's Contributions To Securities Law And Criminal Procedure: "Moderation Is All", Frank Goodman

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Speculations On The Role Of Context In Boycott Cases, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Evils Of Modern Stables, James Irvine Lupton

Equines Collection

Portions of veterinarian James Irvine Lupton's book on horse management that deal with the problems of confinement husbandry practices have been selected as a significant historical record of humane concerns that were documented one hundred years ago. While the author's descriptive prose may lack scientific "objectivity," it does express a common sense morality and the subjective and intuitive observations and conclusions of an experienced veterinarian who clearly respects and understands the horse. His words bespeak of a bygone era where the care or husbandry of animals was both an art and a science, a discipline based upon empathy, compassion and …

Some Simpler Methods Of Accounting For The Effects Of Changing Prices, Surendra P. Agrawal, Kenneth Yale Rosenzweig

Accounting Faculty Publications

The complexities of accounting for the effects of changing prices on financial statements could be lessened with the use of simpler accounting methods. Because of existing complexities, even industrialized countries require only their larger business entities to provide inflation-adjusted information. Such information is prepared by making numerous adjustments to the traditional, historical cost-based data. For example, in the United Kingdom, inflation-adjusted income is calculated in two stages: operating profit and profit attributable to shareholders. These calculations are based on the concept of value to the business and require complicated adjustments with respect to cost of goods sold, depreciation, monetary working …

Regulating Video Arcades Is No Game, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Improvement on Washington Street is needed. The Providence Board of Licenses is about to determine if the Saturn's Rings video arcade on Washington street should have its license renewed. The issue is as critical as it is controversial."

Industry Self-Regulation: An Economic, Organizational, And Political Analysis, Lawrence J. Lad, Anil K. Gupta

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Researchers generally have viewed nonmarket regulation of firm behavior as synonymous with direct regulation by the government. This paper highlights industry self-regulation as an alternative form of nonmarket regulation that, depending on the context, may supplement or complement direct regulation by the government. Further, on the basis of exploratory economic, organizational, and political analysis, it advances, for possible future research, propositions relating to the existence, operation, and out-come of industry self-regulation.

The Behavior Of Confined Calves Raised For Veal: Are These Animals Distressed?, M. Kiley-Worthington

Ethology Collection

The behavior of 12 calves confined in crates was recorded at 1-minute intervals for 12-hour periods. These recordings were made at fortnightly intervals from approximately 2 to 16 weeks of age. In all, 864 hours of observations were recorded.

The activities that were performed and the amount of time spent doing each are outlined. Circadian rhythms were controlled largely by feeding time, although there was a difference between diurnal and nocturnal behavior. Individual calves vaned tn how they adapted to the restricted environment. Individual personality profiles and data on the ontogeny of behavior under these conditions are presented.

At 10 …

The Insurance Classification Controversy, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hsus Veal Campaign Takes Off

Close Up Reports

Through our action packet, which includes a fact sheet describing how veal calves are raised in this country, an action sheet showing what you can do to help, and bright yellow cards to leave when you dine out explaining why you didn't choose veal, you can help get the word out.

It is clear that our efforts to reform milk-fed veal production methods in the U.S. are already producing results. Shortly after our New York Times ad appeared, a large farm group paid to have its own ad published in response. Agricultural trade papers have warned their readers against our …

The Economics Of Farm Animal Welfare, A. J. F. Webster

Agribusiness Collection

The number of ways that one can be nice or nasty to animals are legion. This article will consider only one very specific aspect of farm animal welfare, namely, those systems of intensive animal production in which the system itself, irrespective of the quality of the stockmanship within the system, appears to restrict the normal behavior of farm animals to an unacceptable degree. The systems that were considered by the House of Commons Select Committee on Agriculure (1981) include egg production from hens in battery cages, production of veal from calves deprived of solid food and isolated in wooden crates, …

Hsus Uncovers Cruel Puppy Mills

Close Up Reports

It is estimated that puppy mills grind out more than half a million puppies every year to be sold almost exclusively in pet stores. But it is not only puppies--who, after all, escape the squalor and crowding after six or seven weeks that suffer. Of equal concern is the fate of the puppy mill breeding stock-living, breathing, feeling adult dogs-used to produce these "valuable" puppies. These dogs often are forced to spend their entire lives in cramped cages or pens, with not enough food or water and no shade from the scorching midwestern sun or shelter from the brutal winter …

Farm Animal Welfare: Some Economic Considerations, Frances Turner, John Strak

Agribusiness Collection

Farmers, just like other businessmen, attempt to produce a saleable product at the least possible cost to themselves. In this way they hope to assure themselves of some profit, and hence to earn a living. In itself this profit motive cannot be criticized, but in attempting to maintain their profits, farmers have adopted more intensive systems of animal production. In turn, the benefits from farmers using these new techniques have accrued to consumers in the form of relatively less expensive food. Clearly, by restricting the use of factory farming methods (which are associated with lower unit costs of production) there …

Farm Animal Welfare: Some Opinions, Michael W. Fox

Agribusiness Collection

The subject of farm animal welfare has evoked a wide range of responses from those involved in the livestock industry and those concerned about the humaneness of intensive husbandry farming practices. Books have been published on the subject as well as a large number of articles in professional and popular magazines. Three international symposia dealing with animal rights have been held in the last two years and a major European conference dealing with farm animal welfare and involving veterinarians, farmers, animal scientists and animal welfare groups was held in Amsterdam in 1979.

In the U.K., a governmental Farm Animal Welfare …

Productivity And Farm Animal Welfare, Michael W. Fox

Agribusiness Collection

In the search for and debate over objective indices of farm animal welfare, productivity is regarded by many animal scientists and others in the livestock industry as the most reliable measure of an animal's overall well-being and adaptability. On the surface, this would seem to be so, as productivity--in terms of growth rate, milk yield, feed-conversion and egg production--can be easily quantified. However, there are serious flaws in this assumption.

The Involvement Of The Farm Animal Veterinarian In Animal Welfare, David G. Llewellyn

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

The farm animal practitioner has always played a dual role. The primary role is humanitarian, concerned with the well-being of the livestock, and the secondary role relates to the economics of the enterprise.

Food Animals Are Suffering: Hsus Intensifies Campaign To Eliminate Cruelty On 'Factory Farms'

Close Up Reports

Annually, our food delivery system processes more than 4 billion animals through a chain of events fraught with cruelty. As consumers, we first meet the cattle, chickens, pigs, sheep, and dairy . products at our local supermarkets. The meat is wrapped in clear plastic. The eggs are attractively displayed. The butter comes in cubes. And the veal is already breaded for our quick consumption. The animals that suffered for our daily meals are anonymous creatures we'll never meet.

Our food delivery system is one of the most efficient in the world. The large corporate farms that produce most of our …

Summary Of Labor Impacts During Construction : Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project, Edward C. Jordan Company, Inc.

Dickey-Lincoln School Lakes Project

This study is to assess the effects or impacts of construction and operation of the Dickey-Lincoln hydroelectric project upon the people in the St. John Valley, Maine, and New England. Having determined the effects of the project, a second objective is to discuss mitigation of defined adverse impacts. More specifically, this study attempts to identify adverse impacts and deal with how to minimize such impacts if at all possible.

Social Stress And Welfare Problems In Agricultural Animals, D. G. M. Wood-Gush, I. J. H. Duncan, D. Fraser

Farm Animal Welfare Collection

Disruptions of an animal's social behaviour can, in some respects at least, mimic the effects of such classical stressors as infection and exposure to low temperatures. For example, Barnett (1958) found enlarged adrenals among wild rats which were subjected to attack by other rats in the laboratory. However, the experience of being attacked was not necessary for this physiological response, as the aggressors showed much the same changes as the victims. In fact Archer (1969) reported heightened adrenocortical activity among individually caged mice simply as a result of their being housed next to other mice, without actual physical contact. If …